Naked City
Chapman Admits "Errors"
By Jordan Smith, Fri., Sept. 5, 2003
According to APN, Chapman signed off on a letter outlining Bowers' infractions and authorizing a three-day suspension for the detective. The letter said not only that Bowers used his position to gain confidential information about Patton, but that after his call Davis was "fearful that officers ... may be retaliating" against Patton; Chapman said this led to a charge that Bowers had brought "discredit" to the department. However, in her sworn testimony Davis said that neither allegation was entirely true; she never provided any "confidential" information to Bowers, and her views of APD were influenced in part by input from Patton and in part after calls from Assistant City Attorney Mike Cronig -- who represented the department in the subsequent wrongful-termination case filed by Tim Enlow. According to APN, Chapman admitted that the suspension letter he signed should have said that Bowers "attempted" to gain confidential information -- not that he actually had. Still, Chapman said, though Davis testified that Bowers' call didn't disturb her, he and other supervisors still "felt like it did."
Chapman's admission came just hours before Chief Stan Knee announced an independent investigation to determine whether the assistant chief lied under oath during a July deposition in the whistle-blower lawsuit filed by Detective Jeff White. Ironically, part of that inquiry concerns whether Chapman sought to remove confidential information from an Internal Affairs file -- a charge similar to the one he sustained against Bowers. For more on White's case, see p.28.
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